The UK government has said that they are “determined” to recapture an alleged terror suspect who escaped from prison last Thursday evening.
The Prison Service has launched an urgent investigation into the circumstances behind the rare disappearance of 22-year-old Mohammed Ahmad Mizanur Rahman, who was serving a life sentence for inciting terrorism, from Whitemoor high-security prison in Cambridgeshire.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said: “Public safety is the priority. I am determined that this individual will be brought to justice and we will be leaving no stone unturned in our efforts to do that.”
The Ministry of Justice is facing questions about the escape, including what security mechanisms were in place to prevent it. Questions have arisen over why Rahman was placed in an open prison wing, despite being convicted of a terrorism offence.
The Prison Officers’ Association has called for an urgent review of high security prisons, while the Shadow Home Secretary has raised concerns over “possible Islamic extremism” in prisons across the UK following the incident.
Patel said on Sunday that the incident was being “treated with the utmost seriousness by security experts” and that the government was taking “immediate action to ensure more stringent risk assessments are implemented across the whole prison system.”
